The Daily News and the Vanderbilt Mansion
One hundred years ago today, the Daily News was a new and upstart newspaper–having commenced publication on June 26, 1919 as The Illustrated Daily News–and one with a populist bent under founder Joseph Medill Patterson, a onetime socialist who was descended from the Joseph Medill who had founded The Chicago Tribune.
Newspapers.com
The tabloid’s January 12, 1920 front page prominently featured reportage that Alice Vanderbilt was selling the Vanderbilt mansion on 5th Avenue between 57th and 58th Street, built on a site that had been big enough to contain eight brownstones. It was the largest private residence in New York; the late Cornelius Vanderbilt had said he wanted the structure big enough to “dominate the Plaza,” referring to the hotel up the street.
The price was supposedly $4 million, which these days will apparently get you a three-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood.
The sale did not go through. Don’t blame the News; other newspapers, including the Daily Herald, published the same story.
Newspapers.com
According to an article by Benjamin Waldman in Untapped New York, it was sold in 1926 for $7 million, which will apparently get you a four-bedroom apartment in the same building linked above.